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An unbelievable story
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Posted by: Shane

Just saw this on another forum:

http://www.webspawner.com/users/leepaine/index.html

Sounds like a true story. Both the guy and the Ukrainians are a shame: The guy shouldn't have gone over there in such a haste, and the Ukrainians seemed really hungry for dollars...

I'd love to know what happened to the guy subsequently.

Posted by: rtking

At least he found a nice lady at the UPS office. Maybe that will work out.

Yeah... there's all sorts of scams everywhere. Not just Russian Women scams, but money scams. A common game in Prague is to find a foreigner and offer him a better exchange rate than the official offices offer. (This is highly illegal.) What they do is take your money and give you worthless Bulgarian money instead. And yes, I've been bit by this con-game when I was in Prague.

As for the various versions of scams... I'm sure they're too numerous to really list. But as the lady at the UPS office stated, not everyone is a scammer.

Bob K.

Posted by: Shane

Bob, add this to your inventory of scammer stories --- a real skillful one:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/...ter/3292175.stm

On a more serious note, how common is outright robbery(or worse, murder) in the FSU countries? In the case of the NYC guy,
he said "when Jane saw my wallet, her eyes opened wide..." What if the woman pulled out a gun or something? He should consider himself lucky in a sense.

Although I think the Ukrainian women in this story are more or less shameless, they seem to be appreciative of the man's money at least:

"I gave her $20 and she snatched the money and hurried away with a smile on her face."

"... I took out US$10 and gave it to Jane. She thanked me and said that she would ask Lyuba to come to see me the next morning."

Maybe we shouldn't blame them so much as we have been doing on here. If I had to fight for everyday survival myself in such a screwed up country (and this is not the women's fault nor mine ),
I could end up a worse scammer than they are. What about you, buddy?

Posted by: ConnerVT

I don't have a link, but I can top the guy faking he had cancer. I heard on the radio about a couple who did that with their daughter -- shaved her head, gave her drugs she didn't need, just to claim she had lukemia and con some money.

But in any scam, there are two guily parties. You can not be scammed unless you allow yourself to be. The guy who went to the Ukraine put himself in the situation he was in. The lesson there is: Never put yourself in the hands of people you don't know and trust.

As romantic as it may seem, I will never understand how a man will travel half way around the world, and then depend on the woman he is trying to court to take care of everything for him. You are trying to show you are a reliable, resourseful and capable person. How do you do this, if you are relying on her? I'm sure she can find many men closer to home that need someone to take care of them.

Posted by: Shane

100% agree with you, ConnerVT! Just as there are all sorts of RW, there are all sorts of AM --- hardly a surprise.

BTW, why did you get yourself such an interesting nickname? VT supposedly means Vermont, but Conner seems to remind one of the word "con". Not sure if "conner" is an English word for con-artist --- Sorry, just joking!

Posted by: ConnerVT

Nothing so sinister about my screen name. Conner was the first name of the lead character in the first Highlander movie. His name seemed to change once it was turned into a TV series...

Posted by: Shane

Sorry, Conner, about my poor knowledge of the English language (and movies)...

Posted by: BigMike

This was the most ridiculous and shameless account of scamming I can imagine!

The guy is a fool to let himself be used by these people...

Posted by: Knight_Kadosh

I understand, but struggle with the fact that everyone may have paid a price for his or her behavior. Certainly Lee had a good heart, yet those who took advantage of him missed out on the greater opportunity he could have provided them. I suppose he has no regrets, and a clear conscience. He treated those around him the way he would want to be treated, and thus they showed him their true intentions. I highly doubt the money really mattered, I read the great disappointment he found in the people there, not the poorly spent money. I believe it is wrong to blame or to judge another by their generosity, whether those around him deserved the money or not. He was not outright robbed, at no time was he forced with bodily harm, being greedy may have lead to such an action through the lack of generosity, we may never know. I highly doubt his finances were stressed at anytime during his stay. I suppose, for the money, he received an up front and personal view of real life in that town, perhaps that was really priceless to him, not to mention the happiness he may have temporarily brought to those who shared in his generosity. There are always several ways to view the circumstances we find ourselves in, and I agree, maybe we shouldn’t blame them so much.

Posted by: BigMike

Well, that is a perspective I did not conisder....

I agree, that probably he did not suffer long term financial difficulty as a result, but still, I am angry about this story...

Not sure why...

You know, I think the part that really pisses me off is how the girl that he met in that office acted.

Asking for money for a phone card.

Over charging for the ride to the airport.

Making promises that she had no intention of keeping.

It seems that he had the bad luck to meet only people without morals. It is a shame.

He was setup from the start, I think. The girl was always just bait to get him there. Once there, they milked him. He should have walked the second he understood the situation.

Instead, he fell into the lap of an opportunist, and what happens??

He gets milked again...

I don't know...If there is a silver lining to this story I do not see it...

Posted by: Arnold

To me this story read like an "Urban Ledgend", I am sorry for being so jaded, and not feeling pity for this guy.

The story really scared me about traveling to Russia, or former Soviet territories, and my question is, is this by design?

I have been to many scary places in my life, but never anything like that happened to me. Am I just lucky?

Is it not rude, to show all your money to people in a third world type of country? I mean, what do you expect to happen?

Of course they want your money. I would! One time I hung out with one of my few rich friends in the West, since he could not find a parking spot, he parked on the side walk. I asked him, are you not afraid to get a ticket? He just reached in his pant pocket and pulled out a handful of carelessly assembled large bills, assuring me that he was prepared for that.

I am telling you guys this story, because I could feel my own eyeballs bulging out of my head.

As Shane told me in a different thread, to every action, there is a reaction, and I have to agree with this.

But I also have to agree with Conner, because if you act inappropriately, you should not be surprised, if people take advantage of you.

The reason why I think the story was richly embellished is, because the guy is still alive. On the other hand Bob's own story which he shared on this board seems to be true. It is just not quite as much over the top, as this other guy's story.

--Arnold